Names and Stories - A Sermon for Sunday September 25 2022
GOSPEL: Luke 16:19-31
The holy gospel according to Luke.
Glory to you, O Lord.
Jesus tells a parable in which the poor one is “lifted up” and the rich one is “sent away empty.” Jesus makes it clear that this ethic of merciful reversal is not new but is as old as Moses and the prophets.
[Jesus said:] 19“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. 22The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. 23In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. 24He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ 25But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. 26Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ 27He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house—28for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ 29Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ 30He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ ”
The gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, O Christ.
Someone has risen from the dead;
Jesus the Christ.
Are we convinced?
Last week we heard Jesus’ parable
of the dishonest or shrewd manager.
It took some work, some struggle, amidst our confusion,
but there is a message for those
who continue to pervade poverty
with dishonest wealth,
with unethical lending practices.
You cannot serve God and wealth.
The shrewd manager is commended
for forgiving debts.
The Pharisees ridiculed Jesus for this message.
They are called lovers of money,
so Jesus’ thoughts on money don’t fit with them.
A common belief was that riches in this life
are a sign of God’s blessing and favour,
and poverty, then, a curse from God.
Jesus’ parables and Beatitudes
say God thinks differently.
All that we have and all that we are,
All creation, all people,
all dogs, all wealth,
the food of the feast
and the crumbs that fall from the table;
all of it
belongs to God,
we are the managers.
Having heard the Pharisees’ ridicule,
Jesus then speaks the parable
of the rich man and Lazarus
presumably to a larger crowd:
to the disciples and to the Pharisees.
This parable is meant for the religious insiders,
for Jesus’ closest followers
and for trusted religious officials.
So, Jesus is talking to us.
And it is a warning - a wake-up call.
The poor man, Lazarus,
lives his life at the rich man’s gate.
He is left there,
either by someone
who didn’t want to deal with him,
or by someone
trusting he would be cared for there.
In ancient Palestine,
you would often find a bench
outside the large homes of the wealthy
where poor folk could wait for assistance.
Archaeology helps us with this;
For example, you can find these kind of benches
outside large homes
in an excavated site near Pompeii.
It was expected that
the poor would receive some kind of attention,
especially when a feast is served.
The rich man feasted every day,
while Lazarus, the poor man,
covered in sores,
smelling terrible,
hungered for the crumbs
that he was denied
day after day.
The rich man ignored this unwritten honour code.
The rich man,
like many other rich people,
builds a fence around his property for protection.
To conduct his business,
the rich ruler would then enter and exit from the gate:
the same gate where Lazarus lives.
I wonder how many times this rich man
stepped right over Lazarus,
ignoring him,
being repulsed by him?
Lazarus dies and is taken to be with Abraham.
The rich man dies, and is not.
This should not be all that surprising coming from Jesus.
Jesus’ message is about reversal:
like Mary, the mother of Jesus,
sung upon hearing she would give birth to God’s Son:
“(God) has brought the powerful down from their thrones and uplifted the lowly; (God) has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”
(Luke 1:52-53).
It is a radical reversal.
But our God is a God of reversal.
Today,
We know the names of many rich and famous people,
and it is the poor and lowly
whose names we don't learn.
Yet the poor man is called by name: Lazarus.
We don’t get to know the rich man’s name.
But we know enough about him in this one line:
He wears purple and fine linen.
Those hearing this parable would have known
what this meant.
Purple dye was not easy to come across
and was expensive.
Purple clothing was only worn by the rulers;
by the wealthiest of the wealthy,
a colour reserved
for friends of the Roman Empire.
This rich ruler was a colonizer.
He became rich at the expense of
the Jews in the area, amongst others.
Taxes and tributes lead to his wealth.
Much like we learned last week in the parable
of the rich man and the dishonest manager,
poor peasants would take on large loans
with high hidden interest
and be unable to pay,
leading to family lands being taken away.
Dishonest wealth by conquest.
Those who heard the parable
would have no sympathy for the rich ruler.
( Richard W. Swanson. “Study Notes on Luke.” Lutheran Study Bible. New Revised Standard Version. Augsburg Fortress: Minneapolis. 2009. p1733.)
Lazarus isn’t the only poor person
that the rich ruler stepped over
to gain his wealth.
To make it worse,
Even after the rich man dies,
he believes that he is better than Lazarus,
and expects Lazarus to serve him,
even from the depths of Hades.
What nerve,
what audacity,
what pompousness.
When this drop of water is denied,
the rich man at least displays some compassion
for his brothers,
hoping for a warning for them,
But he again asks that Lazarus serve him
by warning his brothers.
Note that the rich man doesn’t ask Lazarus directly,
he appeals only to father Abraham.
Surely Abraham agrees that the poor man
should serve the rich man.
It’s subtle, but it’s a warning
to those who expect others to be subservient;
a warning to those who feel entitled
to lord over another;
who consider themselves greater than the other.
So here’s the reminder: listen to Moses and the Prophets.
Listen to Deuteronomy 15:
forgive debts
welcome the stranger,
strive for equitable distribution of wealth.
open your hand to the poor and needy neighbour.
And there’s a warning for the colonizers,
for those who take lands of another,
and for those who benefit by colonial practices.
For those of you unfamiliar with the term,
colonialism is essentially about
conquest or conquering lands and peoples
and maintaining control over them.
This is a practice that is almost as old
as human civilization.
Many of us know Canada is a prime example.
In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue,
The Americans,
previously not known by Europeans to exist,
are discovered and colonized.
One problem:
Indigenous peoples had already lived in these lands
for thousands of years.
The lands and peoples native to this place
were victims of conquest.
The colonial conquest has been ongoing:
Residential Schools,
the prison system,
reservations,
pipelines,
water rights,
water quality.
Indigenous peoples continue to suffer
culturally, ecologically,
socially and economically,
While others in this land,
particularly those with links to
the settlers and colonizers
tend to prosper.
As I find myself in today’s parable,
I am most certainly the rich man.
I’m convinced Jesus is talking to me,
warning me,
a follower of Jesus,
a religious insider,
wealthy by global standards,
a male benefiting from white privilege
waking me up…
So by God’s grace I am wearing orange today,
supporting Orange Shirt day
and the National Day
for Truth and Reconciliation, on September 30th.
“The day honours the children who never returned home
and Survivors of residential schools,
as well as their families and communities.
Public commemoration of the tragic and painful history
and ongoing impacts of residential schools
is a vital component of the reconciliation process.” (https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/national-day-truth-reconciliation.html)
For Mi’kmaq advocate Sabre Pictou Lee;
“A huge part of reconciliation is understanding
how small, genuine gestures
contribute to the great reconciliation
between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people,"
I am hopeful and optimistic
for reconciliation and for positive change.
As stories are shared and heard,
healing happens.
Slowly, walls that had been built
are being torn down.
Gates are being opened.
Yet like the rich man who protects his wealth
with a gate and fence,
There remain plenty of barriers.
The fences exists because of fear:
fear that the wrong person will enter the gates.
fear that power will be lost.
fear that privilege will fade.
fear that I will be called to account.
fear that I will lose what is mine
whether acquired honestly
or by means of dishonest wealth.
When I hear this parable of the rich ruler and Lazarus,
I believe God’s Spirit is convicting me
to ask God to forgive me
and to forgive the millions of people
who continue to colonize,
knowingly or unknowingly,
perhaps through white privilege,
or toxic masculinity,
or dishonest wealth.
I believe God’s Spirit is calling me
to live in right relationships with all my neighbours,
especially people that have been
oppressed and abused.
I believe God’s Spirit is calling me
to stop stepping over the many Lazaruses
that lay at our gates.
Most of all,
I believe God’s Spirit is calling me
to learn names and listen to stories.
I think of the rich man
entering or exiting his gate,
stepping right over the poor man with sores,
did he know Lazarus by name?
maybe.
Did he learn his story?
Probably not.
There’s power in knowing someone’s name,
and even more power in listening to their story.
Reconciliation happens when we learn names
and listen to stories.
Faith and compassion grow,
healing happens,
when we listen to stories.
Here’s the real good news,
not just for me, but for all of us.
In this parable, when Lazarus dies,
he doesn’t just get to be with Abraham.
Left out of our English translation,
we read in the Greek text that Lazarus
goes to Abraham’s bosom.
The bosom is the place of comfort
for a child with its mother.
Lazarus,
this poor man,
covered with sores,
thrown at the rich man’s gate,
stepped over,
conquered and dominated by rich rulers
is comforted at Abraham’s bosom.
There is comfort awaiting those who are oppressed,
and find themselves poor and sick
because of the sin of others.
But Lazarus does not find himself comforted
because of anything that he accomplished
or didn’t accomplish in his life.
The name Lazarus literally means “God is my help.”
Salvation - being saved,
healing and wholeness,
going to heaven when we die,
living in heaven here in this life -
does not happen because we are good people
or because we do good things;
We are saved by God’s grace.
It is God’s work alone that saves us.
Thanks be to God,
God saves us even when we participate
in systems and ways of life
that cause there to be many different Lazarus’
laying at our gates.
But it doesn’t simply end there.
Our God is a God of redemption.
I believe that these kind of oppressive systems
and societies
and attitudes
can be reversed by God’s grace,
and I believe it starts by learning names
and listening to stories.
I believe this is what God is doing in our world,
and I believe God’s work
of redeeming what is seemingly unredeemable
can continue in and through people like us.
Let us pray. O God, this parable of the rich ruler and Lazarus is a tough one for me and for any of us who have prospered at the expense of others. We pray for those who are oppressed. We pray for the many people, like Lazarus, who lay at our gates. Call us to learn their names. Use us, we pray, to comfort people who have been oppressed and give us faith to stand against established ways of life that hurt others. Open our eyes to the people that we hurt. The Kingdom of God is the place where people who are covered with sores and eat crumbs fallen from the table are cared for and comforted and fed and welcomed inside the gates. Call us to welcome and invite others. Most of all, thank you, that by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, you save us, and that you offer healing and wholeness to all. Thank you that, like Lazarus, we too can look forward to a time when you will comfort us at your bosom. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
